If you have seen as many movies and TV series as I have you may have asked the question. Why are so many aliens humanoid? Is it because of a lack of imagination on the part of movie and TV producers? Budgetary constraints? Other? I know in the original Star Trek they had constraints of budget, and developed a mythology to explain the preponderance of humanoid species in the Galaxy other than “the studio was too cheap to let us come up with cool nonhumans.” They developed a race of ancients who seeded the Galaxy with humanoids (not sure why), which explained why Vulcans could mate with Humans and produce Spock (thought they used blood with different carrier molecules for Oxygen, so no sure how that worked). Otherwise, no matter the compatibility of sexual equipment, you would have more luck reproducing with a tree slug than an alien, even if they did use DNA (which is also not a given). Now Cheesy old movies used humanoids even if they had scaly skins or claws, because the humanoid actors had to fit into those monster suits. Or if the aliens were very nonhuman they didn’t move much, because that was beyond the effects wizardry of the time. I think one of the hookiest aliens was G-Man from Robot Monster, which was a guy in a Gorilla suit with a single eye stalk coming out of his shoulder area. Of course it wasn’t bad enough to not be retread for Lost in Space later on. Or maybe it was bad enough, which is why it was used. In later series the humanoid form was again used often. The Newcomers from Alien Nation, the invaders from V, even though makeup can be hard, its not as difficult as making a mechanical construct to play a truly alien creature.
Now this isn’t saying that the humanoid form is not a good one, and that convergent evolution won’t happen. I don’t buy the theory that in a million planets developing life every single phylum, class and order will be completely different than anything we have on Earth. I expect to see Reptilians, though with more limbs in some cases. And the humanoid form is a robust form. If I had to go to war I would love for it to be against Posleen like in John Ringo’s novels. They could run, but they couldn’t climb, duck or hide in holes or trenches, all useful tasks in a shooting war. And there were a lot of aliens from Star Wars that looked weird and unusual, but didn’t look like a good choice for a Galaxy winner, which is probably why the Galaxy was dominated by, you guessed it, Humanoids. I don’t expect humanoids to look exactly like us, though that could possibly happen. I really don’t expect for them to have the same genetic structures, internal organs or even number of fingers and toes. Our internal organs and their arrangement are a genetic accident. For example, look at the arrangement of our air pipes and food pipes, which cause so many problems. There was a fish with an opposite arrangement that would have been so much better, but it didn’t win the lottery to become land vertebrates. So we have a bad arrangement of pipes that cause problems.
Books have always had better aliens than movies until recently. A writer could create the truly alien with the stroke of a few keys. They didn’t have to worry about how it would look or move, or how much it would cost to make it do so. Dracocentaurs and other aliens from Poul Anderson, all the forms from Alan Dean Foster, the list is endless. Now, with the improvement in CGI technology the movies can bring forms like these to life on the silver screen, and we are no longer stuck with merely redressed faces on obvious humans. Look at the Tharks in John Carter, or the natives in Avatar. Sure, both were more or less humanoid, but with some big differences that brought them to life. Or the alien in Super Eight, which was powerful, fast, and definitely not humanoid. I look forward to some other creations appearing at a theater near me. Today the only limitation is the imagination of the artist, and the time of the CGI artists, to make anything we dream come to life.

I was recently asked a question by a reader on Twitter. (And that still feels so good to say that word, reader, like I actually have people reading my work, and liking it). He asked if I did star maps for the Exodus series. And my answer was: yes, no and maybe. Since I wasn’t really sure what he meant by star maps, I really didn’t have an answer. Do I draw a map of the Empire and label every important star on it. Well, no. The Empire is four thousand light years from end to end, and over three thousand light years thick, containing over forty billion cubic light years, with hundreds of millions of stars within that expanse. Now most of the stars are red dwarves, like much of the stellar bodies in the Galaxy. Not of much interest on the whole, though there will be some exceptions. I have a mention in book three about how survey teams visit these stars about once a decade, just to make sure nothing bad is going on. There will also be Blue Giants and Supergiants, again not of much interest, unless one happens to be near an inhabited system (as these stars tend to die early and violent deaths). There will be a book in the series that deals with this kind of problem. There would still be some odd millions of stars in that area that would be of interest. In Exodus I make about ten thousand of the stars in the Empire either having inhabitable, alien home worlds, sources of resources of special interest, or containing worlds that can be terraformed. Not sure if this is a hgih estimate, low or just right. I guess no one will know the ratio of inhabitable planets to stars in the foreseeable future. Still a lot of systems, and not really what I can keep track of. So what do I do to keep track of them?
There was a file on the internet some years ago, back in the late 90s, called the Astrogator’s Manual. There was a cool little three dimensional cube in the manual that represented all the stars within a twenty-five parsec on a side box, with Sol in the middle. Now the box was divided into smaller boxes, each five parsecs on a side. And then it showed one layer of boxes with all the stars in those areas represented, then the next section, until all five sections of twenty-five smaller boxes were covered. It did this from front to back, then from top to bottom. I did something like that with my core systems, all ninety some odd of them represented. I also did a chart of when they would be colonized based on how far they were from the central star, these being important for determining length of cultural development and population density of the planets. I haven’t used this box map much, but when I need it its there. I drew a look down map of the Empire and surrounding powers on a piece of graph paper. All very cool, except that stellar empires are three dimensional entities. So I do a slice of the empire from and surroundings starting at one end and doing another slice every two hundred light years, from coreward to rimward. Not all that detailed, but enough to get my mind around it. Finally I did one big map of the section of the Galaxy where all the action was occurring, showing the New Terran Empire in relation to old Earth and the Ca’cadasan Empire. And that’s it for now. I have a program that is supposed to make star maps and allows the user to input data and change parameters. Only problem is the stupid thing takes forever to run on my two years ago was fast computer. But when I buy my state of the art gaming machine in a month (you know, for work), then I will try it again and see what happens. Until then mapping and drawing allows me to keep my little boy’s mind active and develop ideas. Of course I didn’t discuss the smaller maps, the map of the Supersystem showing the stars and their orbits, solar system maps, some planet maps, and a map of Capitulum, the capital of the Empire. Not all the planets of course, but when I need one I will draw one, just to have the reference.

Napoleon was once asked during a battle by one of his Marshals for more time to maneuver his unit and carry out his part of the plan. To which Napoleon answered, “ask me for anything but time.” Napoleon knew that the battle was progressing according to many factors outside of his control, and he couldn’t manufacture more time. The same is true for most of us. I know I never have enough time. I am kind of a one man publisher these days. I write, I edit, I revise, I make my own covers, then I format the books to put out online. Then there is Twitter, and blogs, and promotions, and all the things I have to do to actually get some notice. Add to that a full time job, taking care of pets, and taking care of myself, and there never seems to be enough time. The full time job requires my presence forty a week. I can take some vacation days, or call in sick, though often that means I really am sick, and really not good for anything at that time. I have diabetes, and if I don’t take care of myself I can get really sick, so that also takes priority. But I love writing, really almost every aspect of it (though I am not that enthused about reading a manuscript for the seventh or eighth time to make sure I’ve gotten all the errors. And getting all the errors almost never happens to any of us, even those published by big name houses). It is what I want to do as a full time job, and now that dream seems to be opening up before my eyes.
I have a lot of books on Amazon already, the result of years of writing. Seven of those represent three series, which was probably too much to have going at one time, but it is what I have. Exodus is doing very well, and I have received emails, replies to blog entries and reviews calling for more, and as soon as I can produce it. The Deep Dark Well also did pretty good, and several reviews asked for more. More is now out in the second book of the series. Refuge is doing OK, not as well as I want, but it is selling and is generating some interest and reviews, including several who have asked for the next book. The smart business decision would be to concentrate on the two series that are doing so well and just put Refuge on hold (despite the fact that I have an emotional investment in Refuge from developing the world over such a long time, fourteen years). But I feel it is my obligation to continue all the series, so I will be working on the next book this year and hopefully have it out before Fall. From then on all new writing will be on these series until they either end or I need a break to do something else. I have two more books on the harddrive that are first draft finished, and I may work on getting them out as well, but there is also a first book of a fantasy trilogy that will not see the light of day for several years, as I don’t have time for another series right now.
There is never a guarantee that a series will end. Some go on long after they should have reached a stopping point. There is also no guarantee a series will continue to a logical conclusion. Some authors get bored with the characters and storyline. Sometimes other things get in the way. I was a great fan of Robert Adams and his Horse Clans series. He had finished twenty some books, with a developing storyline that promised many more. He died before he could write any more books, and the series just ended at a point where there were so many unanswered questions. Hopefully that will not happen with any of my series.

Sometime on Sunday I will be releasing my fourteenth novel on Kindle, the sequel to The Deep Dark Well. The Deep Dark Well has done well for me as my third biggest seller. It also started the whole recent success thing off with its free promotion in September of 2012, in which over four thousand books were given away. Since then it has sold a steady twenty books a day, not anywhere near the numbers of the Exodus series, but still respectable. Any way I count it there are about 6,000 copies of The Deep Dark Well out there, and I felt a sequel, turning it into a true series, was just a smart move. Also, several reviewers have asked to see more of that Universe (which is the same as the Exodus Universe, but forty some odd thousand years in the future). I am also planning Book Three in the series, which will make it a true trilogy, as well as a second trilogy, of which the first book, Theocracy, is already in finished first draft stage.
In The Deep Dark Well Kuiper Belt Miner Pandora Latham, an Alabama girl, jumps through a wormhole to an enormous space station in the future. The Donut was once the center of Galactic Civilization, the home to millions of Wormhole gates which connected an Empire. Pandi lands on her feet in this future and her actions impact the course of civilization in the Galaxy. To Well and Back is set two years after the events in TDDW. Pandora Latham is now a true warrior of the future, and she and Watcher have plans to resurrect Galactic Civilization. After several jaunts around the Supersystem, the collection of solar systems in orbit around the Black Hole, Pandora finds she must come to the aid of her friends from the Polytheistic Kingdom of Surya against their enemies, the Xenophobe Fanatics of the Nation of Humanity. Surya and the Nation are locked in a struggle for supremacy in this part of the Galaxy. The Nation has boosted its tech base from reverse engineering the hardware stolen from the Donut in book 1, while Surya has done the same with aid of Pandora and Watcher. But the Nation has a plan to destroy the Suryan presence in the Supersystem and make it a human only collection of worlds.
To Well and Back is a little bit more of a military science fiction novel than TDDW, though it could also fit in the Science Fiction Adventure category. Caution, there is adult language and sex in the novel, not enough to drive it over the border into erotica, but it is there. I debated on whether to tone it down some for younger readers, but decided that this book is for adults, and maybe some precocious children like myself who weren’t too warped by reading novel with sex in them as a child. There is also extreme violence, as befits an age in which very powerful weapons are used on often unprotected soft bodies, and even armor is not proof against everything. If that kind of story is not for you then I would steer clear of To Well and Back. But if you like page turning adventure it is a novel you might want to give a try. And now for an excerpt.

“The damned thing disappeared,” yelled the Tactical Officer on board the flagship Dolphin.
“How?’ yelled back Commodore Valaris Midas, who was now the task force commander with the complete destruction of the battleship Eel with all hands. And one of the ships in his own division was drifting in space after the near miss by another weapon.
“I have no idea, Commodore,” said the man, shrugging his shoulders. “They have some incredible stealth for us to have missed them coming in. But we had a good track and lock on her leaving. We should still be seeing her.”
And that was what the Admiral was trying to warn us about, thought the Commodore, remembering the garbled grav wave message that had appeared on their com system as soon as they came out of Alcubierre. Of course the warning didn’t really match the reality.
“Another message coming in from the Admiral,” called out the Com Tech, and then Gerasi’s face was back on the screen.
“That ship is extremely dangerous,” said the Admiral, his eyes blazing out of the screen. “Take all caution, and use all resources to destroy it.”
“Acknowledged,” said Midas, knowing that his words would take twenty seconds to reach the Admiral. “We…”
“She’s back,” yelled the Tactical Officer, and Midas looked over to the side viewer to see that the red vector arrow had reappeared. And another four smaller arrows had separated and were moving toward his force.
“How in the Hells did she do that?” yelled Midas, watching as vector arrows left his task force and crawled toward the enemy with pitiful velocity numbers beneath them. The incoming missiles had numbers that were anything but pitiful, moving at fifty thousand kilometers a second while pulling thirty thousand gravities of acceleration.
“All ships,” he yelled, hoping that his order would actually mean something. “All weapons fire at those missiles.”
Fast they might be, but the battleships could still track them, and lasers could still intersect them. Those beams struck out at light speed, and missed as the missiles started moving in evasive patterns, while strong jamming blanked the tracking systems.
“What the Hells,” yelled Midas, seeing the tactical screen turn to a mass of static, with the red vector arrows of missiles jumping all over the place.
By chance one of the lasers still struck a missile, and it turned into an expanding pinpoint of eye hurting brilliance. Another missile got struck in the blast and detonated as well. That left two still heading for a target, and fortunately for the Nation task force they both picked on the same ship. Either warhead would have demolished that battleship. Two doubly demolished it, which meant naught to the men who died. They really didn’t care if they were blown to molecules or to atoms. The effect to them was the same.
Midas swore as he watched one of his ships blow up, then swore again as his own ship shuddered and warning klaxons sounded.
“We were hit with a particle beam,” shouted the Tactical Officer. “Minor damage to hull systems. Electromag field down over…”
The ship shuddered again, this time a much deeper shake that told of a pounding on the armored hull.
“Antimatter in that one,” yelled the Tactical Officer.
“Major damage to decks one through ten,” called out the officer sitting at damage control.
A woman’s voice came out of the com with a chilling warbling yell, and beam weapons continued to fly both ways as the ship closed. Beams weapons which never missed from one side, and always did from the other.
And then the enemy vessel was again past, lasers and particle beams striking from her stern as she moved at random vectors while fleeing the ships of the Nation.
“She’s gone again,” called out the Tactical Officer.
“I can see that, you idiot,” said Midas under his breath. “But where the Hells has she gone?”
“It has to be a wormhole,” said the Navigation Officer. “It’s from the Donut, as far as we know. And that thing is used to generate wormholes.”
“You must be correct,” said the Commodore, a tight smile on his face. “Did you get a fix on their point of appearance?”
“I have a tentative plot,” said the Nav Officer, nodding. “I can probably tighten it up if she comes through again.”
“Do that,” said the Commodore, pointing at the screen. “No matter what, get a fix on that point. And you,” he said, pointing to the Com Tech. “Get ready to send that fix to all ships. Maybe we can accomplish something.”
“Aye, sir,” said the tech.
“Here she comes again,” yelled the Tactical Officer. The red vector arrow appeared again, heading toward the force at high velocity. Missile arrows appeared again, separating from the ship.
How many of those damned things can that ship carry, thought the Commodore, watching as the arrows continued to separate and single out their targets. The plot erupted with static again, the red vector arrows jumping all over the place. We’ll never get her once she gets away from that hole and starts for us.
The Commodore sweated in his couch, watching the missiles come in. Two more were knocked out this time as well, but the other two went after separate targets, and two more battleships were blotted from the heavens. And then the ship was past and heading for its exit hole.
“What’s the Suryan force doing?” he asked, in a moment of panic forgetting that they were even engaged with another enemy.
“They’re concentrating on the Admiral’s task force,” said the Tactical Officer.
Thank the God for small favors, thought the Commodore as he looked over his mauled force. He had lost four ships, and two of those left were heavily damaged. But not enough to keep them from firing.
“I have the hole plotted,” said the Nav Officer.
“Coordinates sent,” called out the Com Tech.
“All ships to fire all weapons on that point,” said the Commodore. “Maximum power, continuous.”
“We won’t be able to keep that up too long,” said the Tactical Officer, looking back at the Commodore.
“Fire as long as possible,” said the Commodore. “Until the barrels melt, or we’re out of power.”
* * *
“I think you’ve done enough,” said Watcher over the circuit.
Pandora felt the big smile on her face and shook her head. “I’m having too much fun, lover,” she said, watching the approach to the wormhole mouth.
“I could shut down your fun by closing the hole,” threatened Watcher, but she could tell by his tone that it wasn’t going to happen. She had always been good at judging men, and using that judgment to manipulate them into doing what she wanted. It was no different with the superman she had come to know so well.
“Close it down and I’ll just circle back in normal space,” she said with a smirk on her face. “It may take a little bit longer, but I’ll still get er done.”
“You are insufferable,” said the being on the other end of the com link. “They are going to figure out what you are doing and blow you out of space. That is not a warship you are in. And you are even out of missiles.”
“I figure a couple of strafing runs with light amp and particle beams can whittle them down a bit more.”
“And you don’t even have your armor on,” said Watcher, his voice rising in exasperation. “No wonder you didn’t want a visual.”
“I’m fighting a bunch of old Greek galleys in a fighter jet,” she said with a laugh. “What the hell do I have to worry about?”
“They are a little bit more advanced than a galley,” said Watcher, his voice still at exasperation level. “Their weapons can still hurt you. Enough of them can destroy you.”
“They have to hit me first,” said Pandi, watching as the ripple in space that was the wormhole appeared to her front. “Tell you what. I’ll just go in one more little time, then high tail it out of here.”
Communications blacked out for a moment as she entered the wormhole, then came back as she exited the other end of the portal, lined up and ready for another attack run.
“We are taking fire,” called out the ship’s computer as a klaxon sounded. The ship shook and bucked.
“What’s going on?” yelled the voice of Watcher, and then the com was gone. Not interrupted, just gone, cut off.
“We have hull breaches,” called out the computer. “Lasers and particle beams impacting the hull.”
“Shit,” cursed Pandora, looking over the control board, which kept fluctuating between active and down. “Get us the hell out here. Maximum velocity, maximum evasive.”
“Engines two and three are down,” said the computer voice. “More hull breaches.”
The ship continued to shake, and Pandora could now hear the sound of air whistling through, something. And suddenly there was no air to breath, and she felt a moment of regret that she hadn’t put on that armor after all.

My science fiction series Exodus is doing very well, selling almost two hundred ebooks a day between the first two books of the series. Refuge is also doing well, not as well, but book 1 has sold 600 copies. Now I believe that, while there may be some crossover readers of both series, the readership is in fact very different between them. Maybe some readers are strictly science fiction, while others are completely devoted to fantasy. Readers of both series are awaiting the release of the third book. My answer is, why not read the other series while you are waiting. In my opinion they are mirror images of each other. And I don’t mean that in a bad way. Both deal with members of the human race in a fight for survival. Both are very complicated series with lots of characters and lots of action. Some reviewers of both have stated that there was too much action, or too much detail in the battle scenes. Not sure how that is possible, but to me it beats the alternative. I really hate novels which have a big build up to the battle, maybe a couple of short paragraphs about the fight itself, then a long section about the aftermath, dealing with all the physical and psychological costs of war. To this reader that is boring. I want the details of the fight. I have also been told that some of the physics of Exodus, and I would guess some things like the Pantheons of Gods in Refuge, were too complicated as well. But, again, I want to do something different than having a captain order her ship to match vectors with another, and voila, they are suddenly right up next to the other ship. I have received a review from another science fiction novel of mine, The Deep Dark Well, in which the reader stated he liked that approach, being treated like an adult who could understand 2 + 2.
I guess the point is that if you like Exodus you will probably like Refuge, and if you like Refuge, the same will be true of Exodus. If you don’t like one of them then odds are that you won’t like the other. So if you are a fan of one series, give the other a try while waiting for the next book. I think you will like it, whichever one it is. And now for some excerpts:

Lieutenant Jacquelyn Smith hurtled the body of one of the Elves that had attempted to get in her way. She had shot the man through the face after the first two rounds she sent his way bounced from his armor. She was learning that some of the enemy soldiers had much better equipment than others. And those needed head shots to take out.
Movement at the corner of her eye caught her attention, and she twisted and jumped as the arrow came hissing at her, flying past her shoulder. The US Army officer pulled her rifle to her shoulder, brought the archer into her sights, and squeezed off a round. The man’s head splattered inside his helmet and his lifeless hands let fly an arrow that flew unaimed into space.
Jackie turned in time to bring her rifle around to block the thrust of a sword. She back peddled as she brought the rifle down and fired from the hip, striking the Orc swordsman in the throat. The Orc attempted to come on, only to fall to his knees as he choked on his blood. She looked down at her assault rifle, one she had picked up moments ago when an ax had smashed the action of her American made weapon. The sword had only nicked the barrel guard.
The Lieutenant felt more fully alive than she had ever imagined she could feel, here in the midst of battle. Her senses were sharp, her situational awareness at a new height, her reflexes lightning, and she dodged in and out of the melee as if her opponents were handicapped. Arrows and spears came her way, dodged easily as if they were traveling in slow motion. Sword and axmen died just out of their reach of her, as she snapped off shots and killed without thought. Troops gathered to her as she fought, recognizing a war leader that would carry them to victory.
Her German made assault rifle empty, the officer squatted for a moment over a soldier who had been killed by an arrow through the neck. She avoided looking at his staring eyes, which brought the reality of the situation too close to home; making the game she had been playing a horrible event that snuffed the lives from young men. She unbuckled the web gear and pulled it from the man, taking his full load of ammo with it and slinging it over her shoulder. Then it was back to the business of killing her enemies and guarding the flanks of her friends.
A roar from ahead caught her attention as she ran forward. She was aware that there was still fighting behind her, as more of the enemy came out of the woods and more Germans fought their way forward. But from the sounds up ahead the battle was raging, and that was where she wanted to be.
Jackie skidded to a halt on the grass as she came around a turn and saw what lay ahead. She had not imagined that the enemy would have anything like the three creatures she saw killing Germans with the huge maces in their hands. An APC lay tilted over on the side of the road, the turret on top dislodged from its mount. And the Lieutenant didn’t hesitate, fear totally removed from her adrenaline charged system. She ran forward at a sprint, yelling at the top of her lungs and firing her rifle at the nearest creature.
The Troll swiveled in mid step towards the soldier, bringing its shield up to bat the bullets from the American’s rifle away. She ran toward it, firing low now, watching as her bullets bounced off its skin and wondering for a moment what the hell she was doing. Then she was in range of its mace and the creature swept the weapon down to crush her.
Jackie dodged away from the blow and the monster brought the blunt weapon down onto the ground. It pulled the mace back and attempted a backhand swing at the woman. Jackie ducked under the blow. It brought the mace back again on a downswing, this time missing the leaping woman.
Another roar brought a shiver down the young woman’s spine, breaking through the warrior’s trance she had been a captive of, and she realized that another of the monsters was on her, coming in from behind. She caught a glimpse over her shoulder and dove forward, tucking into a roll that brought her between the legs of the first Troll, and the second missed with its swing, almost hitting its fellow, who gave an accusatory roar in return.
I need a better weapon, thought Jackie, feeling the inadequacy of the rifle in her hands. She couldn’t really use an auto cannon, it being too big and bulky to carry. And all the ones in the area were already manned. A grenade launcher might do some damage, but she didn’t have one of those either.
Jackie’s thoughts were interrupted as she became aware that the Troll she had dodged through the legs of was rearing up over her. She quickly dodged from its downward swing, then ducked the swing of the other Troll, then leapt backwards ten meters from the beasts, her eyes searching for a weapon.
How in the hell did I jump so far, she thought as the leap registered on her mind. Then time for thinking was gone as both Trolls came at her again, moving so they would come in on opposite sides. Jackie moved into a graceful dance that was perfectly timed, making both of the Trolls miss with multiple swings. The creatures stopped for a moment as the human back flipped away, staring stupidly at each other as their tiny minds tried to come up with a strategy to take the annoying warrior out of the fight.
Jackie noticed that she was not even breathing hard. Her reflexes were much faster than she had ever remembered them being. She was dancing around the creatures like Spiderman, one of her favorite comic characters. And while she wasn’t doing the creatures any damage, she was keeping them occupied, away from harming any of her fellow soldiers.
I wonder how strong I am, she thought, moving fluidly to keep the Trolls off balance. With a thought she was moving in, bringing her leg in as she leapt through the air. Her right leg rocketed out and struck her target Troll in the face. She was ready to ride through the kick and land on the monster as it went over. Reality was very different. Her foot hit the monster in the face, the shock transferred up her leg, and she bounced off with a sickening crunch of broken bone in her ankle, while the creature staggered back about a half meter.
Jackie landed on her back, feeling the agonizing pain in her ankle as the ground jarred her. She ignored the pain to the best of her ability, and rolled away as the second Troll brought his mace down on where she had been. Rolling up onto her feet, she felt nausea almost take her down again as the pain shot up her leg from the ankle. She backed up as fast as she could, hopping on her good foot, keeping a wary eye on the two Trolls that came after her with snarling faces.
A mace came at her from head high, and Jackie ducked under the weapon, then jumped with her good leg into the air over the second mace that was coming in at her waist. She was surprised that she still cleared the second mace, and came down well balanced on her one leg. The first Troll came at her with a back swing and she back peddled away, forgetting her injured ankle and surprised that it held up so well. Jumping over another swing and twisting in the air, she landed on both feet and felt no pain.
I know the damned thing was broken, she thought as she ran around the Trolls on both feet. But now there was no pain and the ankle was functioning perfectly. And the Trolls were again roaring in frustration as they chased after her.
Lieutenant Smith felt the physical shock of the arrow before she felt the pain. The arrow sliced through the back of her body armor, through her lower left thoracic region, nicking the heart, and out through the front of her armor. She looked down at the red dripping head of the arrow before the intense pain hit her brain. She could feel blood in her throat and coughed, which caused more pain. The roar of the Troll came to her as from a distance.
Something slammed into her hip and she was flying through the air. The agony in her side was warring for space in her awareness with the agony in her abdomen. Light and shadow flashed by before she hit the ground, adding more pain to the mix. She lay on her back, trying to pull air into her lungs through the pain of broken ribs, feeling the tread of massive feet approaching and knowing that any moment she would be smashed to jelly under a massive mace. That was her last thought as blackness unfolded over her brain and the world faded away.

“Missiles firing,” said the tactical officer.
Captain Dame Mei Lei sat in her command chair, battle armored with helmet nearby. The Jean de Arc bucked slightly as she released a spread of missiles from the starboard tubes. The port threat had been taken care of by the remnants of the fighter force that had originally struck the enemy fleet. They had continued on, accelerating away from the action. Two hundred fighters had swarmed over the enemy force, taking out the three cruisers and the super destroyer pair of that force.
The battle cruiser was now firing on the other force, which was more distant than was thought at first. They had fired as well, and the battle cruiser’s fighters were forming a screen between their mother ship and the enemy, waiting for the incoming missiles.
“Missile ETA in fifteen minutes,” said the tactical officer, his voice cracking with tension.
We’ve all been under too much tension for far too long, she thought, watching the holo display.
“I wonder why they haven’t thrown their fighters at us,” said Commander Jackson from CIC.
“We don’t know enough about the capabilities of those platforms,” said the tactical officer. “They may be too short ranged to be employed against us.”
“Ours could chase us three times around the system,” said Jackson. “I wouldn’t assume theirs were any less capable.”
“Maybe they just didn’t think of it,” said Sean, his voice flat.
“What did you say, your Majesty?” asked the Captain, wondering if he was being sarcastic.
“What if they didn’t think of it,” said Sean, his voice coming alive. “What if they don’t think as well as we do? After all, we are the most powerful race in this region of space, able to out think most of the dozens of other sentients in this region. Maybe we are smarter on the average than the Ca’cadasans. Maybe we are better at strategy and tactics than they are.”
“They are more advanced than we are, your Majesty,” said the tactical officer.
“By what,” said Sean. “Maybe a couple of decades. Maybe less. I can tell you that some of the advanced tech I have seen from these demons from our past is similar to what we have on the drawing boards right now. Hell, some of it is in predeployment trials right now.”
“And they were thousands of years ahead of us, thousands of years ago,” said the Captain, nodding her head. “And that time includes a thousand years in transit, without a lot of advancement going on. Now they are only decades ahead of us, if that.”
“They are too big,” said Sean, smiling into the link. “They have rolled over everyone they have ever come in contact with. There was no pressure to advance, while we were involved in the fight of our lives against other powers that were more or less technologically equal to us. In some cases superior. And we continued to advance so we could continue to win.”
“And we learned from those who had ruled this space before us,” said Jackson. “We picked up their tricks, and tech from our friends.”
“They are still really big,” said the tactical officer. “Even if we catch up with them. I think it was Stalin who said quantity has a quality all its own.”
“You know your history, Lt. Commander,” said the Emperor, his eyes glowing. “It will be a fight. But we may have the advantage in smarts. As long as we keep those dumb asses in Parliament out of the way.”
He’s coming back to us, thought the Captain, a smile breaking out on her face. He can see hope in the future, and that is lifting him up.
“We have translation ahead,” called out the tactical officer. “Something big.”
The Captain’s eyes narrowed. Of course there was so much going on in the near hyperspace to this system that they were having trouble tracking individual ships. But it couldn’t be coincidence that the ship was coming in right here, right now. And they were so close to the hyper limit themselves.
“Can you tell whose it is?” she asked the tactical officer, feeling her chest tighten.
“It could be one of our super battleships from the size of it,” said Jackson hopefully. “Or it could be…”
“One of theirs,” said the tactical officer. “Thirty light seconds ahead on our present bearing.”

Have you ever watched a science fiction movie, let’s say Species, where there was a scene where something came out of a test tube and ended up covering the room in an instant? You know, like maybe a couple of grams in the tube, which breaks on the floor releasing the thing that grows into a couple of hundred kilograms of alien badness before the incineration system takes it out. And have you ever asked yourself where the biomass came from in a room full of machinery, with we hope not too much in the way of humidity (which is bad for the equipment), with nothing to eat but the two humans who were in protective suits in the room? And they didn’t look like they had lost any weight during the creature’s growth. So just where does all that extra mass come from. I’m sure there are a lot of young men out there trying to gain weight for football who would like to know the answer to that one. After all, they’re trying desperately to put on a few pounds a week, so they won’t be broken in half by the real blue chippers on the field. And here’s a creature that seems to inhale mass from out of nowhere. Something similar happens in Alien, where a small creature bursts out of the chest of its host after maybe taking in a couple of kilograms of nourishment. It runs away and is later found at larger than human size after having eaten, as far as we know, nothing, except maybe some emergency rations in a locker somewhere. And the alien has some really different protein structures in its body, as shown by the almost universal acid if bleeds, and the cellular structure to hold in that acid. Meaning? That it must have a hell of a metabolism to change proteins so radically. Now the blob does a better job of showing where the mass for its growth is coming from. After all, the damned protoplasmic creature (which is probably impossible for other reasons that are not the focus of this blog entry) eats voraciously. In fact, its eats everything it can get its body around. But again, it must have some kind of metabolism to change proteins, haul its heavy ass around, and do other kinds of blob like stuff. We know that most meat eaters on our world might get a tenth of the food they eat to convert to body mass. The rest is burned up to run the metabolism. And even if the blob is cold, with a lower metabolism, it still couldn’t do better than one third of its food into body mass, now could it?
Now in fantasy there is really no need to explain the mechanism. It’s magic after all. Dragons turn into people and back to dragons and we don’t know where the mass goes to. Another dimension, a dragon cupboard in the kitchen, it don’t matter, because it’s magic. Same as Bruce Banner turning from a hundred fifty pound man to the ton of Hulk. But it would be nice if science fiction, which is supposed to be based in some way, shape or form on science after all, either gave an explanation for the inexplicable, or toned it down so that some semblance of reality was achieved. At least for those of us who give a damn.

I have to admit that I forgot all about this one. A couple of weeks ago I filled out a short questionnaire for a Blog/Facebook Page called Celebrating Authors. I’m always for a bit of good publicity, feeling it can only help people to discover my books, which in my opinion is a good thing. From most of my reviews a good number of the people buying my books agree, though there are some who wish they had never heard of me. Oh well, I guess you can’t satisfy everyone. But Celebrating Authors seemed like a good idea, and I was very pleased to receive a tweet from Carolyn Arnold (@Carolyn) about the blog entry I was featured in, http://celebratingauthors.blogspot.com/2013/01/i-own-five-cats-or-do-they-own-me-mini.html. I also noticed that a bunch more people retweeted it across the Twitterverse. A well organized effort. I love doing things like this, and would be willing to guest other writers who want to put something out on my blog. Celebrating Authors also has a Facebook Page, and is open to all who engage in this very bizarre practice of putting words on paper, or today electrons on hard drives.
Another cool thing that happened today was a post on an earlier blog entry about my success in 2012 as a self published author. A fan of my Exodus series of books wanted to tell me how much he enjoyed the series, finishing the first two books in two and a half days. Wow. That is very sweet music to a writer’s ears. I responded to his post. Unfortunately, I don’t have the next installment of the series ready to post on Amazon, but I will try my best to get one out there by Spring. That said, this and other posts, both email and reviews, has also put great responsibility on my shoulders. I have to put out something good, something that will satisfy those who have invested their time in my characters and the story. I have always been a fast writer, and do some things a little bit differently than most writers. I know that all the pundits say to cut cut cut, but I always like my first draft. After a good time hidden away on the hard drive I normally like what I read. And I add, add, add. It still takes time to write a novel, even for a speedy story teller like myself. When I switch to full time, hopefully by this summer, I can do more. The goal is six to eight novels a year. To some people that may seem like too much, but it has been done before by many writers. Until then I will do what I can, and try my best for those who have chosen to call themselves my fans.